


The Hall Of No Return

by tea_and_outer_space



Category: Mystery Skulls Animated
Genre: Agoraphobia, Anxiety, Apartment AU, Chronic Illness, Chronic Pain, Ghosts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, disabilites, selective mutisim
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-25
Updated: 2016-09-02
Packaged: 2018-08-10 23:14:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,349
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7865245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tea_and_outer_space/pseuds/tea_and_outer_space
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's the agoraphobic in 4A.<br/>He's the ghost chained to 4B.<br/>She's the disabled coder in 4C.<br/>None of them can leave their apartment, but they make it work.<br/>-<br/>Or, Arthur learns morse code because he can't speak, Lewis learns to phase through walls eventually, and Vivi discovers there's more to life than emailing her clients and doctors. Meanwhile, Mystery watches the entire thing bemusedly over his glasses.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue: Of Mister Mystery

**Author's Note:**

> warning for mentions of suicide and stuff, its not that much now but it'll probably get more when i get more into these characters heads

To be honest, Mystery had named his building 'Skull Apartments' to ward off tenants.

Only the normal ones, though.

Mystery was a people person, because 'people person' sounds better than 'human shape-shifted kitsune with a propensity for dark magic and observing humans'. He had gone into the world of letting out apartments for the uniqueness of it all, not for the normalcy.

He didn't want Linda with her kids Cayden and McKarty and her PTA work, he didn't want Mr. Benson with his 9-to-5, he didn't want Brad and Tiffany pregnant out of senior year (“But like, it's totally gonna work out!!”).

No, Mystery wanted only the most interesting (read: entertaining) tenants in his apartment buildings.

There were four floors to Skull Apartments. The building was lovely, walled with purple painted stones, the sparse yards fenced in by elaborate metal bars. It was imposing to some, but that was all part of the plan, part of the charm.

On the first floor resided Mystery's own apartment, out of sight, and out of mind. His actual name was Benjamin, but he preferred that everyone in the building knew him as a mystery and as Mystery only. (Observations were made best when the observed didn't know that they were being so.).

Along on the first floor resided the 'normies', as Mystery mentally called them. They were the Linda's and Benson's and Tiffany's, the normal people who dove in for cheap rent, would get a sense of how creepy the building was after a while, and would leave before they were fully unpacked. Mister Mystery didn't show them much attention other than to unnerve them a little, scrape a little bit of rent from them before creeping them out a tad and sending them on their way.

The second floor was let out to four, technically five, people. Rather, four people and one ghost. Or, rather, three people, one ghost, and one whatever-the-fuck that Miss Shiromori was.

There was Shiromori in apartment 2A, who's apartment was filled with all things botanical, and a few magical. Mystery offered her polished grins that hid his pointed teeth, and she glared back with polite smiles.

There was Duet and Chloe in 2B. They were nerds. That was all. Their cosplays and bickering over what Star Trek captain was the best was at least mildly entertaining on slow days, so Mystery let them stay.

And there was a young man named Jonathan in 2C, who was mostly normal, save for the fact that he had a ghost tailing him and trying to tempt him into suicide. (Mystery wasn't very particularly concerned. Jonathan was resilient, and during the more interesting arguments Mystery would just tune in with kitsune-dog-supernaturally aided hearing and break out the popcorn).

The third floor was one that _no one dared enter_.

Because it was being fumigated. Prior to that lived a woman named Nan and her boyfriend Lorenzo, both whom seemed too much like goats, a beady eyed pickpocket named Santiago, and a rather unnerving priest that was always referred to as Padre who gave even Mystery the chills.

He was a little glad that the third floor needed to be fumigated.

(He'd continue it 'needing to be fumigated' until Santiago and Padre moved on. Nan and Lorenzo could stay, though, although since the floor had been 'under construction' for months now, he doubted any of those tenants would be back.)

The fourth and final floor was the most important by far, and the most interesting by far.

It was ever so eloquently referred to as the Hall Of No Return.

Three people went in, and they never came out, for various reasons or another.

There was Arthur Kingsmen in 4A, who's crippling anxiety and agoraphobia lead to him being terrified of taking a step out of his apartment. The man was riddled through and through with anxiety, and it was quite clear that he'd rather die than open his door or speak a word.

There was Lewis Pepper in 4B, and he was the only one in the entire apartment building who was able to get away without paying rent. It was because, of course, he was dead. A suicide in the apartment had chained him to it, and although Lewis would have liked to move on into the afterlife, or anywhere else besides a dingy apartment for that matter, he found himself spiritually bound to his only home.

In 4C resided a woman named Vivi and only Vivi, who's infliction weren't mental or spiritual, but physical. She worked from home, and had a handful of disabilities that made leaving the apartment too much for her. She earned Mystery's respect the day she smacked Santiago upside the head with her cane when he leered at her ass once.

The fourth floor was the hall of no return, because although Vivi, Lewis, and Arthur had all entered, they didn't leave.

If you slipped into the hall in the middle of the night you might see Lewis's flames licking the bottom of his door, maybe a shoe or a curl of hair if you're lucky. If you woke up early on Saturdays, you might be able to see Vivi getting her groceries delivered to her, edging out of the apartment just enough to let the delivery man in to do the heavy lifting her chronic illnesses didn't allow her. If you sat outside Arthur's door for a week you wouldn't see one sign of life at all, but the occasional muffled noise or a twitch of electricity would remind you that he was there, and he was still alive.

The three didn't leave, the three didn't know one another, and the three were all rather settled in their roots.

Of course, Mystery was a man of entertainment. Not one of torture, no, so he wasn't as drastic as he could have been. He could have lit the building on fire, and saw what would happen to the ghost, the agoraphobic, and the disabled. He could have gave them a sudden notice of eviction and watched them crash and burn. There were dozens of things he could have done, some cruel, some horrifying, but although Mystery loved to watch the world burn, he loved to watch it blossom even more.

Although, the bumpy drama that would ensue would provide entertainment too, so his actions weren't entirely selfless.

Half for his trio of apartment dwellers, and half for him to watch human and ghost life unfold in the ways that it only would if he pushed the right buttons, nudged the right people, and pulled the right strings.

“Hello, yes, is this the post office? Yes. You see, I require a new mailman. I own the apartment building on the corner of Sixth and Main – yes, Skull Apartments, that's the one. Why? Well, the current mailman has been coming here for years, he's getting rather up in age. We might possibly be having to do elevator repairs, and I wouldn't want him to be hurt by trying to scale our floors for the sake of mail. Yes, I see. Yes. Perfect. Thank you. Good day.”

People were rather easy to play.

And with that, things started sliding into motion.

 


	2. Mail, Meds, Melancholy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New mailman panic, Seinfeld bitterness, and mythology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, before you go into this, lemme be clear with something.  
> i'm chronically ill. all the conditions that Vivi has, I either have them or am educated on them. so please don't call me ableist, because i'm not in the position to be ableist, i'm writing from a chronically ill standpoint and i'm in the same boat as Vi. most of her feelings towards her illnesses and conditions are ways i feel about myself, so just take that with a grain of salt before you critize it or want to call me out on it.  
> also, it's the same with Arthur and his anxiety. i have it to. again, no ableisim comments please.  
> also: the word apartment shows up 47 times. thats a lot.  
> anyways, enjoy.

****Arthur felt like he had a deal going on with the mailman.

Which he didn't. He had a deal going on with Mister Mystery who had a deal going on with the mailman.

Opening the slot on his door to drop mail in was a tad bit too much for the agoraphobic Arthur Kingsmen, so he had his landlord talk to his mailman and tell him to slide the mail under the door. Less fuss, less trouble, it made no sense but it put his anxieties at bay and that was all that mattered.

Arthur sat in the small area in front of his doorway, his orange eyes locked on the metal slot that mail would be inserted in for any other person.

He had it locked.

Last night he had received a group email, sent to him and all other tenants of Skull Apartments. The message from Mister Mystery was brief, just a notice that a different mailman would be making deliveries than usual for the foreseeable future.

Arthur had a panic attack, didn't sleep the entire night, and now he sat on the floor of his apartment in expectation.

He glanced down at his phone.

8:03 am.

Three minutes late.

He wasn't quite sure what he was going to do if the new mailman didn't work out. It wasn't as if Arthur got much snail mail anyway, just the occasional magazine or bill, but _still_. He couldn't open the mail slot in his door, he couldn't step outside his door, and he couldn't just not get his mail.

Maybe it'd pile up. Maybe it'd make a mountain of mail, a massive pile in front of his door, and it'd get bigger and bigger and flood the entire apartment building with bills and magazines and postcards, and-

Holy fuck there was a _ding_.

Arthur's orange eyes went wide, and every muscle in his body went tense.

It was just the ding of the elevator. A moment later he heard the elevator doors sliding open, and then there was the sound of boots on plush carpet.

Apparently the carpet in all other parts of the apartment building sucked, or so Arthur heard (read), from the emails. But the carpet on the fourth floor was just fine, since it didn't have people constantly walking on it.

The other two people living on the same floor as Arthur didn't leave their apartments either, ever. He didn't know why, and he didn't have the courage to ask.

There was the sound of rustling, and Arthur heard mail being slipped into the slot for 4B.

Their old mailman always started with 4C. Arthur narrowed his eyes at the door.

 _Change_.

There was a fifty-fifty chance of whether the mailman would come to his apartment or the one across the hall next, but despite knowing the chances, Arthur still was terrified when there was a rustle at his door.

There was the soft sound of clattering metal as the man attempted to shove mail through the locked mail slot, and Arthur clasped a hand over his mouth to stifle the yip of surprise that wanted to escape his lips.

He sat in expectation.

The mailman knocked on his door.

Arthur practically flew, scrambling up from his spot on the floor and retreating backwards, getting as far away from the door as possible. He pushed his back into the far back wall of his apartment, a hand still clasped over his mouth, his eyes still wide and focused on the door.

The mailman knocked again.

Arthur's shoulders rose up, him ducking his head down a bit, burrowing in his hoodie. Kind of like a turtle hiding in his shell, he thought. He felt like a turtle sometimes.

“Uh, is anyone home?”

Arthur went pale as a ghost.

This mailman _talked_.

“I'll just, uh, yeah,” the mailman continued, his voice getting softer until he was muttering under his breath. Arthur saw shadows move underneath the door, and then there was nothing.

Footsteps receded from his door, and shuffled across the hall. There was a knock on the door of 4C, and the mailman spoke again.

“Package for Vivi - , uh, just Vivi?”

“One minute!”

Arthur shuffled across his apartment carefully, trying not to make any noise. His feet were clad in orange fuzzy socks, and he nearly slipped on his wooden floorboards, but he did make it back to the door in one piece (one part metal, the rest flesh, but still).

Arthur got down on his hands and knees, and looked out through the crack underneath his door. In the distance he could see the girl in the apartment across from his signing for her package, and the shoes of the new mailman. (Orange, nice.)

A few inches from his door, there was his mail.

Arthur tilted his head, trying to gauge the distance from the mail to his door. He couldn't stick his finger out to get it, because even sticking his finger out of his apartment was too much. Maybe he could get a ruler and pull it under the door? Or use one of those jelly slappy hands to swing out and grab it, those always grabbed paper somewhat well.

The chit-chat between the new mailman (who's name turned out to be Rooster) and the girl of 4C dwindled, and soon the hallway was empty again. The woman shut her door, and the mailman left, leaving Arthur laying on his floor and staring at his mail that felt a world away.

It was a few inches, but Arthur was always one for drama.

He sprung up to his feet and darted into his apartment, making a beeline for his desk. There was a mass of clutter on top of it (Arthur had a few hoarder-esque tendencies), and there was bound to be something that would help him get his mail in it. He ruffled through the mess and all he came up with was a wrench (actually, several wrenches), and he decided it'd work as well as anything.

Arthur returned to his door and got back down on the ground, and stuck the end of the wrench out of the door. He carefully edged it out towards the mail, moved ever so easily, and-

Oh, his arm glitched.

A shudder ran through the mechanical limb, and it sent the wrench and mail flying. The wrench smacked into the wall with a loud thud, and the mail went out of sight.

Arthur quickly hit the emergency shut off button for his arm, stilling the twitching limb. He frowned down at it for a moment before deciding he'd deal with it later, right now his focus was on the mail and the wrench.

Arthur lifted up his good hand to undo the lock for his mail slot, and flipped it open. He could see his wrench resting on the other side of the hall, and his mail knocked even farther out of reach.

The door across the hall swung open, and Arthur's eyes flashed to the figure in the doorway.

He _made eye contact_.

Orange eyes met blue, and then Arthur _panicked_. He locked the mail slot and scrambled away from his door as fast as possible, his breath coming in short gasps.

Someone had _saw him_. For the first time in two years. He had saw someone, and they had seen him. Arthur felt like he was hyperventilating, and he found himself frozen in panic on the floor of his apartment.

A few moments passed by, and there was the very very faint sound of footsteps on the plush carpet outside. For a minute, it sounded like the girl had three legs, before Arthur belatedly remembered he had caught sight of a cane once or twice. He didn't know much about her at all, but he did hear the cane on occasion, and some nights he (and the man of 4B too, presumably) were kept up with her as she practically shook the apartment with her coughing.

Arthur tried to get his breathing under control, and tried to stop the tremors wracking through him.

Barely past eight in the morning, and he was already on his first panic attack of the day.

The footsteps stopped.

Arthur held his breath.

A shadow blocked out light from the crack underneath his door.

Arthur was pretty sure his heart stopped.

A moment passed by, and then two envelopes were slid underneath his door. A wrench shortly followed.

The footsteps and thud of a cane retreated, and the door across the hall closed.

Arthur wasn't quite sure how long he sat on the floor of his apartment. Eventually he lifted up numb fingers to activate his metal arm once more, and he took in a shaky breath. He stood up to his feet, knees knocking, and slowly made his way over to that damned door.

He took up the wrench and mail, and made his way over to his sofa. The worn leather was an infinity more comfortable than the wooden floorboards.

He dropped the wrench onto the mass of clutter that made up his coffee table, and turned to the mail. One envelope contained his cellphone bill, and the other piece of mail was an advertisement for the local zoo (ha, as if he'd ever step foot outside, and if he did, as if he'd ever get within a thirty foot radius of _giraffes)._

He tossed the zoo ad to the side, and turned to his phone bill. He flipped it over to open it, and to his surprise, he found a sticky note.

A blue sticky note, written on in a darker blue marker.

_I'll talk to the mailman for you tomorrow, don't worry! -Vivi (neighbor across the hall) :)_

Arthur stared down at the note, before a soft smile crossed his face. He couldn't remember the last time someone had done a nice gesture for him. He knew that she had her own share of disabilities and issues, so the fact that she went out of her way just to get him his wrench and mail was nice.

The smile quickly fell off of his face when he realized something.

He'd have to thank her, and that meant _talking_ to her.

Arthur descended into his second panic attack of the day.

* * *

It was eight in the goddamn motherfucking morning, and Vivi was pissed.

First, a migraine kept her up all night long.

Second, insomnia was being a bitch anyway.

Third, the chicken teriyaki from last night really didn't agree with the migraine, and left her alternating between vomiting and laying on the bathroom floor for an hour.

Fourth, joint pain was hell.

Fifth, she ran out of pain meds not just three hours into her migraine-joint-pain-plus-leg-pain hell, leaving her even more miserable.

Sixth, the oldies channel had the _audacity_ to play Seinfeld instead of Everybody Loves Raymond at four in the morning. All she had for company was Jerry and George and Elaine (featuring Kramer occasionally flailing on screen), and the remembrance that the Bee Movie was a thing that existed did nothing to soothe her pain.

Eventually four in the morning evolved into eight in the morning. Seinfeld switched to Full House, then (thankfully) Everybody Loves Raymond, and then Family Matters (Vivi turned off the TV as soon as Steve Urkel made her head hurt worse).

The sun was shining, there were birds in the trees outside her balcony, and Vivi was _fucking pissed_.

Painful nights and lack of sleep did not lead to the kindest of thoughts.

Vivi didn't blame herself. She kept her cool with incompetent doctors, misplaced lab tests, running out of pills. She kept her cool (more or less) with the miles of medical testing she'd been through. At the very least, she hadn't decked any nurses yet, no matter how tempting it was.

So Vivi allowed herself this. She let herself be pissed over migraines and pain and Seinfeld.

She deserved it.

Vivi slumped down in her puffy armchair, tossing aside the TV remote and flinging a sweater sleeve clad arm over her eyes. The blue fabric smelled like sweat, although she imagined most of her smelled like sweat. And vomit. Being sick wasn't pretty. She couldn't find the energy to shower, change, or care.

Vivi heaved in a deep breath (slight wheezing accompanied it, she made a mental note to take her inhaler when she passed by it). She moved her arm after a moment, and brushed her bangs out of her eyes (skin felt clammy, maybe she caught a fever? She made another mental note to take her temperature soon).

She sat up in her armchair, and glanced around her apartment. Half empty mugs of tea littered the room, books were thrown about like a tornado had swept through her shelves, and there was a nest of blankets in the corner.

It was taunting her.

Vivi glared at the blankets.

Oh, hell yeah, it was _taunting_ her.

Vivi wasn't ever quite a normal person, and she was fairly positive most people did not own a nest in their apartment. She did, however, and she had put it to use many times.

It was just a mass of blue blankets and blue pillows on a large, handmade blue beanbag. And it was cozy _as hell_. Vivi preferred it to her bed to be honest.

The only problem was that The Nest was so low, barely off the floor. The beanbag wasn't that thick.

Getting onto the beanbag wasn't a problem. She could flop, dive, jump, cannon ball, and the mass of blankets and fluff would catch her.

Getting off of it was the problem.

Vivi discovered this after one bad joint pain flare up, shortly after her leg was injured. It took her ages to get to her feet off of it, and all the maneuvering had fucked her up with pain for a solid week. Falling off a beanbag and onto hardwood floor multiple times in quick succession wasn't forgiving on her sensitive pain receptors, and Vivi decided to steer clear of her nest until her joints were a bit better, and her leg healed up.

Her joints weren't better, and her leg was fucked to hell.

Vivi narrowed her eyes.

It had been months.

_The Nest was taunting her._

Vivi decided that The Nest was more offensive than any ablest comment she had ever heard, any anti-vaccine argument, any rude doctor.

The Nest was Satan, she decided.

She glared at it, and Vivi swore it glared back.

Part of her wanted to just stand to her feet, limp over to her nest, flop down, and sleep for a solid day and a half. The mass of blankets was like tea at just the right temperature, chicken noodle soup without carrots, all the right sitcoms at all the right times. It was just as much a medicine as the pills in her weekly pill sorter were.

 _But getting up_.

Eventually her stand off with The Nest was interrupted.

Two quick knocks on her door, and a “Package for Vivi - , uh, just Vivi?”.

Vivi shut her eyes.

_Standing, finding her balance, walking to the door, opening the door, making chitchat with the mailman, signing for the package, carrying the package inside, shutting the door finding scissors, opening it, nine steps in total._

She could do this.

Vivi opened her eyes and grabbed the cane leaning on her armchair. It was painted blue by herself, if she was going to be chronically ill, she may as well do it in style. She used the cane to help haul herself to her feet.

“One minute!” she called, before gritting her teeth.

Her leg definitely wasn't liking this. Her joints either. Nor her head. Vivi paused for a moment to right herself, before beginning the short trek to her door.

She paused by the mirror she had hanging in her entryway, and cringed a little at the sight. Frizzy hair, frumpy clothes, she couldn't remember the last time she had brushed her teeth.

_Yeah, I definitely need a shower._

Vivi turned to the door and ran a hand through her greasy hair. ( _I really fuckin' need a shower._ )

Awkward conversation with the mailman while she was in such a state would be worth it, for the package. Being on a first name basis with the pharmacist and getting early morning deliveries of med refills was also worth it. After this she could finally take something for the pain, and that would give her enough motivation to shower, and then she could see about sleeping, if insomnia so willed it.

She opened her door, and spiky red hair paired with nervous eyes greeted her.

This definitely wasn't the old mailman.

Vivi realized there was probably a memo about this in her email inbox, but she had been too busy retching chicken teriyaki into a toilet to check her emails.

“Hi,” she said, after a moment. (Her throat was a tad raspy, she made a mental note to get the cough drops from her medicine cabinet. Vivi made a lot of mental notes, evidently.)

“H-hi,” the new mailman stuttered out.

They both paused in silence.

“Oh!” the mailman said, suddenly flailing his limbs, one to grab a box from the bag at his side, and one to grab the clipboard that hung on his other hip. “Your package!”

“Yes, thank you,” Vivi said. “You're new, right? I don't think I remember seeing you around.”

“Yeah, I'm n-new,” the new mailman supplied, as he passed Vivi the clipboard. She let her cane lean against the door, keeping her weight on her good leg as both her hands were occupied with the pen and clipboard. “You can sign there, and there, I think. My name is Rooster.”

He gestured to the embroidered name tag on his shirt. _Rooster_ , it said.

Vivi looked at his spiky red hair. His oddly round facial hair. His wide eyes. His practically palpable anxiety.

He did, in fact, look like a rooster.

“Is that a nickname?” Vivi asked, as she scribbled off her name in the first slot he had indicated. The pen ink was blue. _Respect._

“Uh, yeah, no, h-heh,” he stuttered out, providing no clear answer.

Vivi signed her name in the last slot, and filled out the date. She slid the (blue) pen back into its slot, and held out the clipboard to him. She took up her cane again, shifting her weight onto it. Relief was evident in her bad leg, although the few seconds without the cane did do a bit of toll. She gritted her teeth, hoped the pain didn't show, and flicked her attention back up to Rooster.

“It's your first day, isn't it?”

Rooster's eyes went wide.

“Uh, why? Am I d-doing something wrong?” he asked, anxiety making his voice spike a little.

Vivi shook her head.

“Nah, nothing wrong. You're just nervous, loosen up a little.”

Rooster nodded.

“I'm really nervous. It's my first day and all the other mailmen kinda hate this place so they gave it to me and I'm nervous and I'm pretty sure the lady downstairs almost murdered me with her shears because I accidentally tore a leaf on the plant I delivered her.”

“Shiromori? She's all bark and no bite,” Vivi said, “If she gives you trouble, let me know and I'll kick her ass for ya.”

She didn't have the energy to kick ass, nor did Vivi have any intentions to leave her apartment anytime soon, but the words made the nervous man smile a bit, so it was worth it.

“Oh, uh, here!” Rooster said, handing her the forgotten package. “S-sorry.”

“No sorry needed, newbie,” Vivi said, taking the small package eagerly, “You're giving me pain meds to kick this migraine I got going, so you're like my favorite person right now.”

It'd kick a lot more than just the migraine, but Vivi didn't feel like going into her medical history with an anxiety-filled mailman at the moment.

She felt like falling into a mass of pillows and blankets, that damn fucking nest-

“Oh, I hope your headache gets b-better,” Rooster said.

Right, she was in a conversation right now.

Not the time to be brewing over hatred for The Nest.

“I p-picked up the package from the 24-hour pharmacy down the road at seven – funny, I didn't know they stayed open that late – so the p-pills are... fresh.”

Vivi stared at Rooster.

Fresh wasn't a word she had heard to describe pills in, well, ever.

“Thank you again,” she said, deciding not to comment on the freshness of pills or how a headache wasn't really the same as a migraine. The guy had bags under his eyes and his hands were shaking like a snow-globe, she decided he didn't need more shit. “I won't keep you any longer, I'm guessing you have more mail to deliver?”

Rooster nodded his head firmly, like he was a boy scout nodding to his scout leader about getting more badges. Or like he was an anxious man who was nodding to a sick lady about delivering more mail.

“A bit of advice for tomorrow,” Vivi said, “Try to mellow out. Shiro won't hurt you, Jonathan and Sock are harmless, Chloe and Duet are just dorks, and although Mister Mystery plays it creepy, he's fine. The building's a bitch but you'll do fine.”

Rooster absorbed the information, before nodding once more.

“G-got it,” he said, “I'm sorry for today.”

Vivi shook her head.

“You did fine,” she said, flashing him a tired smile, “Just bring me my meds and we'll get along perfectly. Maybe forget to bring my medical bills.”

Maybe humor would calm him down.

Rooster's eyes went wide.

“Uh, do you r-really want me to not bring your b-bills?”

_Mental note: Rooster is too anxious for humor._

Vivi shook her head again.

“Please bring me my bills, Roos, as much as I hate 'em I'd have a lot more problems than a headache if you didn't bring them.”

She currently did have a lot more problems than a headache, but again, wrong time, wrong place, wrong conversation. He was a mailman, not a therapist, and although he was the first non-medical-related person Vivi had spoken to in ages, he really didn't need her unloading her shit on him.

“Okay,” Rooster said again. He didn't move.

“Have a good day,” Vivi said, taking a step back into her apartment. Rooster suddenly realized he could leave, and nodded.

“You too. Good luck w-with the headache,” he replied.

“Thanks.”

Vivi shut the door.

Hooray for painfully awkward conversation with anxiety personified, she got her pills.

Vivi set down the box on the small table underneath the mirror in her entry way. She pulled out the drawer the table had, her junk drawer. Pens, sticky notes, paperclips, old inhalers, and ah, scissors.

Vivi grabbed the scissors and started hacking at the tape on the package (careful hacking, but still hacking, mind you). Eventually she got her way in. ( _Package, hacked_ )

She opened the box to find two bottles of her prescribed painkillers inside, and although Vivi wasn't sure if she believed in a god, she thanked whoever was listening.

Resting her cane against the table, she took up one of the bottles and expertly twisted the cap off (despite her joint pain, Vivi had childproof caps down to a science). She dumped two pills into her hand and then knocked em back dry.

Vivi cringed at the bitter taste, and she decided to follow up the pills with some tea and homemade egg drop soup. Easy on the stomach (and if she threw up again, it'd be easy coming out too. Unlike that damned chicken teriyaki), and it'd help the slight bug she got in her throat too.

A sudden mechanical whir broke the silence that hung over the apartment building, followed by a _thunk_.

The _thunk_ hit her wall.

Vivi turned and raised a blue eyebrow, narrowing her eyes at her door as if she could see through walls.

Despite living in the apartment building for a few years now, Vivi didn't know much about the two she shared the floor with.

Vivi felt that out of everyone in the building, she knew everyone the best. She knew why Shiromori was such a bitch, she knew why Jonathan didn't want to die and why Sock wanted him to. She knew what laid underneath Duet's hood, and why Chloe was never out of cosplay. Mister Mystery was still a mystery of a mister, but Vivi knew him the best out of everyone.

However, she knew nothing more than email handles and a few tidbits about the two people she shared the Hall Of No Return.

It was easy to figure out whose email belonged to who, and Vivi narrowed it down to the fourth floor residents being her, PepperMan99, and KingArthur17.

And the rest she knew was that one of them had no concept of how to be quiet with machinery, the other played a mean violin, and both never left their apartments either.

Floor four, home of the sick and whatever-the-fuck the others were.

But the point was that Vivi knew that the other two didn't leave their apartments. Ever.

And halls don't make noises on their own. (Well, occasionally they did, but Vivi confronted that with holy water and a baseball bat.)

Vivi grabbed her cane and set down the pill bottle, and swung open her door.

Orange.

Vivi found orange eyes watching through the mail slot in the door across the hall.

They flicked to her, and widened in a silent scream.

The mail slot was suddenly closed and locked, and Vivi heard the sounds of him scrambling away.

Well then.

Vivi looked at where the thunk had came from, and found a wrench lying by the wall of her apartment. Halfway across the hall was one piece of mail, and half underneath the door of 4B was another.

Things clicked into place easily. Vivi had seen the old mailman sliding mail under Arthur's door once, with a few complaints about how he 'had to go out of his way for that crazy man inside'. Vivi personally felt it was a bit rude, and had told the mailman as such.

It had been Rooster's first day and Vivi bet that 4A guy kept his mail slot locked, so Rooster had probably set it right outside the door, not knowing that the man inside wouldn't step a foot out his apartment. 4A guy had probably tried to worm his mail under the door with a _wrench_ of all things, and apparently that hadn't worked out that well.

Vivi didn't hesitate to move to the wrench.

She did, on occasion, leave her apartment. It was a rarity, just doctor appointments here and then. She didn't harbor the entire isolation that the others on the floor seemed to, although to be honest, she just left out of necessity. Walking was pain. If Vivi could have spent her entire life in her apartment (on The Nest or not) she would have.

She made her way over to the wrench and looked at it. It had a few dings, a few stains, it was clearly well worn. 4A must be something of a tinkerer, she decided.

The wrench was on the floor, though.

This posed a problem.

Vivi heaved a sigh, cursed her nature for wanting to make people happy, and bent down.

Oh, _fuck,_ her joints didn't like this.

And, of course, the pain meds hadn't kicked in yet.

Vivi let out a sharp hiss of pain through her teeth, and snatched up the wrench as fast as possible. She righted herself, and not a heartbeat later pain thumped its way through her joints.

She decided not to linger on it, and carefully limped over to the first piece of mail on the ground. Vivi paused in thought, her blue eyes flicking from the mail before her to the letter half underneath the door of 4B.

There was no way in hell she was bending down two more times.

Vivi gently kicked the mail with her foot, nudging the letter forward as she moved across the hall. Her cane made a rhythmical thud on the carpet, accompanied by softer padding of her bunny slippers.

She was one step away from 4B, just needed to kick the one letter by the other and pick them up in one go, and-

Well, whoops.

She overestimated her kicking strength, apparently.

The mail slid across the hall and right under the door for 4B.

Vivi frowned.

Through rain, sleet, hail, however the fuck the saying went, Vivi didn't remember, but she knew she needed to adhere to it in her position of a temporary mail carrier.

She stepped closer to the door and posed her free hand to knock, when all of a sudden the two pieces of mail were slid neatly out from under the door.

Vivi barely managed to catch the sight of black-glove covered fingertips sliding them out.

She knelt down (painfully), grabbed the mail (painfully, because her fingers decided to fuck her over too today), and stood to her feet (once more, painfully).

“Thanks!” she said, to the person behind the door marked 4B. Dust gathered on the metallic sign that marked it as such.

Her voice came out raspy and it crackled a little, and Vivi cringed.

She paused in expectation.

No one replied.

“Alrighty then,” she said to herself, turning and hobbling her way back down to her apartment.

She couldn't just slide the mail under the door without leaving a note, she decided. She stepped into her apartment and set the mail and wrench down on the table by her door, and she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror.

Her disheveled appearance stared back at her.

 _Fantastic_ , she thought, as she fished for sticky notes and a pen, _First time the guy across the hall sees me, and I look like Brittney Spears in the bad ages. First time I speak to the guy down the hall, and I sound like I've been smoking a pack a day since birth. Perfect. Just perfect._

She tugged the cap of the pen open with her teeth, and scribbled down a short message. She'd talk to Rooster tomorrow and tell him that for reasons unknown to her the guy across the hall liked his mail under the door. It was the least she could do for her neighbor. Mr. Rogers would be proud.

Why she signed the note with a smiley face she wasn't sure, maybe it was that unnaturally orange eyes intrigued her, or maybe it was just that the recluse in 4A needed a smile.

She slapped the sticky note on the first piece of mail, and wondered if slapping sticky notes on other peoples mail counted as tampering and if this was illegal. Vivi hoped it was. She hadn't done many illegal things, it'd be another to tick off the bucket list.

She dropped the pen and sticky note pack back into the junk drawer, and grabbed the wrench and mail again. She made her way across the hall, knelt down (once more, for good measure, _painfully_ ), and slid the items under the door.

Vivi made her way home. She shut the door behind her, rolled her shoulders (guess what? painfully), got to work.

More pain meds, her inhaler, a thermometer, cough drops, tea, egg drop soup, and another glare-off with The Nest awaited her

* * *

Lewis sighed dramatically.

Which didn't do much. His lungs didn't really need air, and there was no one to hear the sigh.

There was no one to hear his anything, though.

Lewis leaned back, closed his eyes, and _fuck_ \- he just slammed into a wall.

He shifted his weight downwards to leave his floating position and perch on his hardwood floors, and glared at the wall. He lifted a hand to run it through his pink hair, feeling the bruise that was forming, and glared at the wall even harder, his flame pupils burning brightly in his resentment.

Who knew ghosts could feel pain?

(Lewis did. Lewis _knew_.)

Lewis Pepper had been residing in Skull Apartments since before it was called Skull Apartments. It used to be a place called Clearview Luxury Housing, and it was where Lewis Pepper had died at the age of twenty one.

The world had changed around him. New buildings came and went, new tenants came and went, Lewis's regrets came and – oh, no, those stayed. And eventually Clearview Luxury Housing was abandoned, and eventually it was bought.

And so Lewis Pepper found himself as a permanent tenant of the creepy apartment building that everyone else avoided.

It wasn't by choice, though. If Lewis could leave, he would, really. Exploring the world via floating sounded nice. He'd always wanted to see Aztec ruins, the Great Wall Of China, Spain, the Louvre, something _other_ than the gas station outside his window.

But that's not how ghosts worked.

Or how he worked, apparently.

After his death, Lewis learned a great many things about the supernatural, and about the being that he had become. People say that life comes fast and gives you no time to learn or catch up, and death turned out to be that twice over.

The first thing he learned was that he couldn't be seen.

Back when Clearview was abandoned, sometimes teenagers or urban explorers or drunk homeless men would wander into his home. Lewis waved his arms, Lewis flung himself at people, Lewis begged. He made every effort to be seen, felt, _something_ , but it was all to no avail.

The only person who could him was Mister Mystery, but Lewis quickly found out that the man wasn't exactly a man. Mister Mystery had been surprised to see Lewis, and Lewis had been surprised to see a terrifying fox-wolf creature with oh so many tails swishing about. Mister Mystery had been even more surprised to find that his human facade didn't work on the ghost, and Lewis figured that's why the man never really talked to him, he held a grudge about Lewis being the one person he couldn't fool.

But Mister Mystery had let him stay, and had even hooked him up with some cleaning supplies and a computer, so Lewis could tidy his old furniture and keep in the loop with emails that were sent out to the other tenants. So the kitsune-man wasn't all bad, Lewis decided.

The second thing he learned was that he couldn't leave.

It was as if the door was a brick wall, and the windows had bars, although neither was true. Lewis tried everything, flinging, floating, tearing apart walls, but nothing let him out.

Sometimes though, if he closed his eyes and tried real hard, he could almost feel himself in the Pepper Paradiso, smell the spices in the air, hear the shrieks of his little sisters laughter.

Lewis came to the conclusion that he could only go to places his mind registered as home. The apartment was his home.

The Pepper Paradiso used to be, but events that had happened lead to it just being a dwindling memory in the back of his mind. A memory best left untouched, like a hot stove. Despite being half flame, the ghost could still get burned, and so he didn't think of the restaurant.

Things happened, it wasn't home, and so Lewis could only get there halfway.

There had been a lot of other things Lewis had learned, but he was still young. He'd always be young, he supposed, his death had been premature and now he was stuck in the state of being twenty one.

There was an infinity of things Lewis _didn't_ know about being a ghost, however.

And he was about to learn another fact about himself.

The day had started with floating.

Floating and accidentally slamming his head into a wall.

The next half hour was spent glaring at the wall, because Lewis had nothing better to do.

He then drifted over to his computer and sat down. About fifty open tabs in his internet browser greeted him.

Some were on ghosts, some were webcomics he was in the middle of reading, some were about Greek mythology.

Lewis had all the free time in the world, and he was pretty positive he had read at least a third of Wikipedia at this point. As for the present, his interest was in Greek mythology, so he had a couple of tabs about Achilles and Persephone and Icarus open.

A few tabs were some gaming channels on YouTube, a few were some online flash games, and a few were for music.

Lewis was a ghost of diverse interests.

He minimized all of his neatly organized windows, and opened up a new tab. He punched in the domain for his email address, after remembering he hadn't checked it in a while.

Spam, spam, spam, webcomic update, soap advertisement (Lewis missed bath bombs, and didn't have the heart to unsubscribe from the Bubbleicious Bath Boutique newsletter), and, oh, a letter from Mister Mystery.

It wasn't just for him (the emails were never _just_ for anyone, the apartment runner was an all or nothing fellow. Either Mister Mystery sent out an email to the entire apartment building, or no one at all).

KingArthur17, ChronicallyChill, MistressMori, Jonathan69, HiImSock, Duet007, CosplayingChloe were all sent the same email.

_Just a heads up, we'll be having a new mailman coming in for the foreseeable future. Nothing else should change. If problems arise, contact me personally._

_Effective January 20 th. _

_-Mister Mystery._

Short and simple, to the point, and it had nothing to do with Lewis.

He didn't get mail, he was dead.

Well, he got mail sometimes. From insurance companies, or advertisements, or tax collectors. People who didn't realize what _dead_ meant.

Lewis close the email, lusted over the bath bombs in the next email (if his bank accounts weren't closed upon death and he could still take baths, he'd _so_ get half a dozen of the glitter-filled pink ones), and eventually closed out his email.

He switched over to his mythology tabs, and was prepared to absorb himself in tales of feathers and wax and flying too close to the sun, when there was a rustle at the door.

Lewis's head snapped up, his flame hair fluttering with the movement. He turned, finding a few pieces of mail being slid into the slot of his door.

Mythology momentarily forgotten, he floated to his feet and made his way over to the door. It was likely just junk mail, but he always checked on the off chance that it was something important.

Junk, junk, and junk.

Lewis held the stack of fliers and advertisements in his hands, and he narrowed his eyes, and concentrated.

His fingertips began to heat up, and the projection of human hands wavered a little under the pressure. All his focus was on his hands.

After several minutes of concentration, sparks emitted from his fingertips, catching onto the papers easily. The flame licked at the mail and burned it easily, the paper curling up as it charred under purple fire.

A slight grin crossed the ghost's lips, even though he found out he could manipulate fire years ago, it still was super cool. The fire didn't hurt him at all, and soon enough nothing remained in his hands but a ball of purple flames; the mail long burnt.

 _Thunk_.

Lewis flinched at the noise, his head snapping up and the fire going out. Before he could even think about what made the noise, a piece of mail slid halfway underneath his door.

Lewis knelt down, and caught half of a name.

 _Kingsmen_.

Lewis drifted back up into the air, and turned to face the door. He took in another unneeded breath, and concentrated once more.

One of the early things he had discovered was that he could see through walls.

Which was kind of bitchin', if he was honest.

The little kid in him who always wanted to be Superman thought it was amazing, but the mature adult in him (well, as mature as a twenty one year old could be) knew it was an invasion of privacy. Knowing his shitty luck, he'd wink his special vision on, and catch the girl next door taking a shower, or the guy next door jacking off.

It was considerate in a rude way that whatever had made him unable to leave his apartment also gave him the gift of sight beyond his prison. It was a blessing and a curse, seeing something other than his apartment let him clear his head, but at the same time, it showed him how much he was missing out on.

Overall, Lewis figured it was a power left unused.

But thunks in the hall were new, and mail that wasn't his own slid under his door was certainly new.

So this was an exception.

Everything shifted, and Lewis scanned the view before him. The woman in 4C had perked up at the sound too, apparently. A surprised look crossed her features, and she set down the bottle in her hand and took up her cane.

Lewis tilted his head. He also caught sight of a knee brace, a few pill bottles, and the way she winced with movement.

He wondered what was wrong, and if he could help.

He snapped out of that a moment later. He was doomed to his apartment forever, of course he couldn't help.

Lewis shifted his attention to the man in 4A. He had a metal arm, which was being unnaturally still at the moment. He shifted off of his hands and knees to just his knees, and peeked out of his mail slot, the same time the woman across the hall swung open her door.

Time paused for all three of them.

Lewis's eyes flitted between the two with interest. The woman held her breath, surprised at the sight, and the man went absolutely rigid.

A moment later the man ran, like a deer would from a hunter, or a clumsy anxious man would from a harmless person. He was practically tripping more than running, and Lewis instinctively edged forward to catch him if needed, before remembering that there were a few walls between them.

The man curled up in the back of his apartment, hyperventilating like hell. Lewis bit down on his lip. He knew how anxiety was, and he wished he could give some form of comfort to him.

After watching the man for a moment to make sure he didn't pass out, Lewis turned back to the woman. She had begun to make her way down the hall, and only then did Lewis notice the wrench and the other piece of mail.

She winced with every step she took, and she clearly had something wrong with her left leg. When she bent down to get the wrench, a flash of pain contorted her features, and Lewis cringed in empathetic pain.

When she edged to the first piece of mail, Lewis prepared to see her hurting once more, but she paused. And she kicked the mail.

And again.

It took Lewis a second, but he figured it out fairly quickly. She was going to move the two pieces of mail together so she could get them in one movement, instead of having to bend down twice.

Lewis smiled a little, knowing it'd hurt her less.

He watched her as she grew close, it was the first time he actually had seen the two in the other apartments. Everything about her was blue, which he imagined would be odd on other people, but on her it worked. Her eyes, behind glasses, were fully focused on the mail on the ground; and a slight frown of concentration tugged at her lips.

When it came to the last kick, she overshot it. The piece of mail slid underneath Lewis's door, a foot or so into his apartment.

The woman scowled, her shoulders slumping.

Lewis bent down, and grabbed the letter. Thank god he could interact with objects.

He picked it up, and slid it under his door, neatly on top of the other letter.

The girl noticed, and a smile lit up her tired features. Lewis smiled brighter, glad he could bring her some happiness.

She picked up the mail, and instead of leaving as Lewis expected, she paused.

She looked up at the door.

Lewis froze.

She was human, that much was clear, so she couldn't see through walls.

But he swore she looked right into his eyes.

“Thanks!” she said, raising her voice so she could be heard through the thick wooden door. Her voice was raspy, it was clear she was sick. Lewis cringed a little, she shouldn't be raising her voice like that if her throat was sore.

“No problem,” he replied, after a moment.

She continued staring at the door in expectation.

“No problem!” Lewis repeated, raising his voice louder.

A twitch of a frown appeared on the woman's lips, and her shoulders slumped.

Lewis sped to his door, getting as close as he could to it, even as he felt magic shoving him back from the exit.

“Can you hear me?” he shouted, as loud as he could.

“Alrighty then,” the girl said to herself, turning away.

It clicked.

She couldn't hear him.

“Hey!” Lewis practically screamed.

Lewis learned another thing about being a ghost that day.

Like his soul, his voice was trapped in the apartment too.

“Please come back,” Lewis begged, his voice dropping to a whisper. It suddenly hit him how lonely he was. He raised a hand, pressing it against the magic blocking the door. “Please.”

She didn't.

He watched her as she walked down the hall, and then ducked into her apartment. She wrote out a note, and then she returned the items to the man in 4A.

The man in 4A took up his items and moved to his sofa, before reading the note. Lewis wondered what it said. Whatever the note read, it brought a smile to the mans face.

After a moment, there was a flash of panic.

The man tugged the note off of the mail, holding it in front of him. He rose from his sofa, and began to pace about his apartment.

He was thinking of a reply, Lewis deducted. And judging by the frenzied pacing and the alarmed look on the mans face, he was anxious about it.

Lewis looked over into 4C, and he saw the woman take up her pill bottles and move to her kitchen. She opened up a cabinet, that was littered with bottles and other various medical items. She fished through stuff until she came up with a thermometer, and she worked on getting her temperature.

Lewis drifted back from the door, letting the magic push him away. He rose up into floating naturally, and wondered what he could do for the other two people he shared the fourth floor with.

The woman was clearly sick and in pain, and the man was clearly on the verge of a panic attack.

And Lewis wasn't one to just stand around when others were hurting.

He glanced around his apartment, wondering just what he could do.

His eyes drifted to his computer and he considered an email, before he decided that would be a bit too weird.

 _What would I even say? 'Hey, I spied on you two using my dead-ghost-super-vision, and I can see you're panicked and you're hurting and I'm sorry you're both feeling bad?' Yeah, that would be a hell of a first impression_.

No emails, he decided.

His apartment was sparse, and so from his computer, his eyes flitted to the next unique thing.

His violin.

A smile crossed his features.

He now knew for a fact that his voice couldn't carry out of the apartment, but he also knew for a fact that the sounds of his violin could.

(He had discovered this via an angry email from a 'MistressMori', who ranted about how Lewis's 'abhorrent classical music' was detrimental to her plant's growth. Lewis had deleted the email.)

He drifted over to the instrument case, and picked up his bow, running a gloved finger over it to make sure the horsehairs were stiff and rosined. It was enough to his suiting, so he took up his violin, and drew closer to the wall nearest the two apartments.

He couldn't speak and he couldn't touch and he couldn't visit, but at the very least, he could play for them.

Lewis tucked the violin under his chin and closed his eyes, and then he began to play.

Soft sounds of a calming melody began to drift through the Hall of No Return.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> >:3c  
> let me know what you think!!

**Author's Note:**

> congrats to you if you got the welcome to hell and nanquest references. if not, i'm sorry for the gibbrish. lemme kno what you think!!


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